This is a development from work being done by the Office for Westminster diocese's At Your Word Lord process. It stems from the idea that, for example, the Magnificat is firstly a text that occurs frequently in the liturgy (e.g. it is recommended as a proclamation of praise at the conclusion of a Rite of Penance); secondly that the text is part of our tradition - what we hand on. Music is integral to its liturgical use but it is also an aid to its second use - music helps us remember text.

The musical examples given are from the Liturgy Preparation material for At Your Word Lord. The intention is to provide examples that can primarily be found in the common hymnbook and that even a parish with limited resources can recognise something.

The long list is an attempt, having identified some obvious examples, to see what else might be categorised a 'core repertoire'. It is clear that there needs to be some sort of grading - some are more core than others!

I am looking forward to comments, ideas about settings, notes of obvious omissions etc. The list is also offered as stimulus to composers. For some of these core texts there is little repertoire. For example - the New Testament Canticles could do with liberating from being recited at Evening Prayer.

Thank-you to the Liturgy Office for this. I have had it in mind to formulate some replies for ages, but have not done the searching required yet. I have started the ball rolling though, with one suggestion for an Ubi Caritas setting. In time, I shall use the lists as a stimulus to compose something. I hope, in due course, we shall accumulate many useful suggestions, as we have been doing with Gloria settings elsewhere on this Forum.

Gwyn, don't tar the Welsh with the simpleton brush! The request for responses seems fairly explicit to me, and admin. has been to the trouble of breaking the long list into bite-size pieces.

Yes Dot, I was simply seeking clarification that the request is really just as it seems. And it seems that it is exactly that.

Of the many blessings that being a Welsh person brings, by no means least among them is to enjoy a light-hearted dig at our own expense (another is being able to sing everything as though it were in F minor)

Thank you, Martin, for giving up some precious free time at Summer School to explain to those interested the idea behind the core repertoire. Unfortunately, I think my brain was in 'switch-off' mode so can I just check that I have it right?

A parish ought to have a core repertoire of music for those things listed and more. Some parishes may already have their own, but, the list you are compiling might give them some new ideas either to replace some of their existing ones with more suitable ones, or just to augment their own lists. Some parishes, like mine, may have a core repertoire but have only just realised it! We have piles of music for lots of parts of the Mass, different psalms and for various occasions in the liturgical year, so I suppose that is our core repertoire. As an aside, it occurs to me that we have accumulated a lot of music that less than good over the years and perhaps now would be a good time to weed that out and dispose of it!

I realise now that you are also asking whether there are other texts which should be considered 'core'. So, the idea is that, if we think of any other texts, we should notify you of these, and we are also invited to make musical suggestions for texts that appear, to be added to the settings you've already listed. So your list will be texts and musical suggestions. That is right, isn't it? Sorry if I'm being dim but Summer School took a lot out of me!

I do have a question:

I suspect that there are a lot of compositions floating about for many of the texts you suggest but the problem is they are not published. I would say that more than 50% of our core repertoire is unpublished work. I happen to think that some of it is really good but there would be no point suggesting it be added to your list if it is not accessible, would there? Or could there be entries that say, for instance, 'The Reproaches by Joe Bloggs (please contact composer on xxxxx for a copy and permission to use)'? And if we submit unpublished suggestions, would you need to see them to approve them? The reason I mention The Reproaches, by the way, is because we tend to alternate between a lovely setting by Peter Jones that is published, I think, and a Blues influenced setting by Paul Wellicome that is fantastic, but unpublished.

To answer your questions and then think aloud about repertoire a bit more.

Tsume Tsuyu wrote:I realise now that you are also asking whether there are other texts which should be considered 'core'. So, the idea is that, if we think of any other texts, we should notify you of these, and we are also invited to make musical suggestions for texts that appear, to be added to the settings you've already listed. So your list will be texts and musical suggestions. That is right, isn't it? Sorry if I'm being dim but Summer School took a lot out of me!

Yes - suggestions about texts. I have added since you remind me 'The Reproaches' to the list - though personally I am ambivalent about the text but that's another discussion.

Yes - to music suggestions. As I have noted before this project has grown out of work the Liturgy Office has done for Westminster diocese. For that I gave musical examples but generally restricted them to being in a common hymnbook. But I welcome the idea that it might be one way of making good music being written across the country be known. I am building up a list of suggestions people have made.

At the moment I think the music listed are examples rather than suggestions/recommendations. The only 'approval' would be to check that it 'does what it says on the tin' i.e. a 'setting' of, say, Philippians 2 that was actually only 2 lines from the text out of 20 I would not judge to be a setting of the text.

At a later stage I would want to make a distinction between settings of the text and settings based on the text. For example - are you singing the Magnificat if you sing 'Tell out my soul' or a hymn based on it? To put this in context - if you were starting Evening Prayer in the parish with few resources and decided to use 'Tell out my soul' as the Magnificat and the only other item that was sung was a hymn at the beginning I would respect that choice as the value of singing the text would be important and it gives emphasis to the Gospel canticle. If two years later you had built up resources and regularly sang the psalms but were still only singing 'Tell out my soul' I would wonder.

As you note every parish has a repertoire - though some may not realise it yet! What is the purpose of a repertoire - to serve the liturgy, to deepen people's faith, to enable people to participate in the liturgy so that they can deepen their faith?
In some parishes there may be a number of different repertoires but no common repertoire. How does this effect when we celebrate together? Is music a sign of unity?

The texts of the core repertoire are nearly all drawn from the liturgy. It is based on the idea that primary source of what we sing should be the liturgy itself - which is, I think, quite challenging.

Ah, now they'd have been a dead give away, wouldn't they? Actually, I did come in full national costume including knitting needles. Sadly, the needles were confiscated by the summer school committee who decided they constituted a lethal weapon. And I abandoned the Kimono as it didn't seem appropriate garb for Zulu chanting and dancing, somehow!

I think this document was sent to Rome a number of years ago and there it has languished without courtesy of a reply. Other sources say that they think Rome wants actual items to vet, rather than a generic list, but heaven knows how they'd ever have the time to do that!